Gaelic Fathers

My Gaelic father,

Bone bred in the fighting ways

Came home, bloodied victory

With teeth in his knuckles

Red hair wild with generations

Of rebellion in his blood

Pumped hard through his 

Saint Andrews Cross heart

Warrior poets of a misunderstood

Clan

Passed down to me

Through the filter of anger

And language

fortitúdinem y intelligentia

Driver's Diaries

Notes on a Fallen Snowflake

The snow drifts down, slanted to the political climate, landing on the dirty streets clean as the moment it left the clouds. The filth soon penetrates crystalline cracks of individuality. It isn't long before the little flake is swallowed up by the tainted slush that waits to be driven by passing cars. In a sad scene that plays out too often in the gritty city, the once unique petite thing becomes swallowed by the junk and is indistinguishable from any of the other mess that gets pushed out of the way so that the good people of the world can get to work.

Driver's Diaries

I remember days like these when we were kids. Long before we were spoiled by air conditioning. The only way to get cool was to take a dip in the dirty swimming hole, then find some nice shade and wait for the wind to bring some relief. That was Mother Nature's air conditioning. I bet she looks at us a little cross now, so pampered in our modern ways.

Drivers Diaries

So the day started out on an interesting. I was taking Kelly to work and as we were traveling down Alpine, a tow truck started to pull out, turning left onto Alpine near Ann St. I was certain he was going to get in the left lane because there were two northbound lanes on Alpine. He started getting into my lane (the right lane) and Kelly yelled for me to look out. I was too close to hit the brakes, so I hit the horn and went up onto the curb to avoid a collision and only just missed doing so. At once I was angry. I got out of the car with the intent to do great bodily harm. As I walked toward the back of the car where the tow truck had come to a stop, I heard the driver pleading “I didn’t see you dude, I didn’t even see you!” I walked around the back of the car and looked to see if there was any damage and as I was getting ready to yell at this guy, I didn’t. I got back into the car. I sat there for a minute, thinking about what to do, got back out to say that I didn’t think there was any damage, but that I needed his insurance information. 

 I thought about this incident and came to the conclusion that, yes, the driver of the tow truck was at fault because he was not paying attention to what was in his path as he was cutting across four lanes of traffic, but I was also at fault because I assumed I knew what he was going to do and I must have been traveling too fast to stop in time. What I did do right was laying on the horn before he hit me and evaded the collision. Kelly said to me “good driving Benji!”, so that was worth it! She also said that she was expecting me to get out and yell at the other driver. I told her that I was too, and more. She said that she wished that I had and I asked her what good that would have done. No one was hurt; there was no damage. Best to not make a bad situation worse.

 I don’t think my heart rate changed during the whole incident. I was calm the whole time. That is due either to my meditation, mindfulness, or the 6mg of melatonin I took last night to sleep. Whatever it was, I am glad for it. I avoided an accident, a heart attack, and assault and battery charges.

Everyday minutea

Couldn't find a paper clip...

Bi-pedal

Panorama from Richmond Hill

Driver's Diaries

I sat down at my desk in my bedroom, looked at the stacks of guitar books, cd’s, movies, papers, books, and the camera that I haven’t used in a year and thought that it was appalling that I had let all of this mess accumulate and that I really ought to clean it up. With a sigh I mentally sorted through all of the items on my desk, and then came to a realization; there is nothing more satisfying than a messy desk. It really does say something great about you. I don’t mean the kind of messy desk that you have at work where it is all neglected stuff that you really don’t want to do. That just means that you are overwhelmed and probably stressed needlessly. No what I mean is the kind of mess that really shows that you are an interesting person.

If you have more than a half-dozen books on your desk on subjects ranging from the arts to science to how to re-build your car engine, cd’s both burned and loose from their jewel cases, movies that hardly anyone else has ever seen, mixed with various musical instruments and the obligatory notepad, then you are probably an interesting conversationalist. 

I have always had some sort of mess following me around. I take a backpack everywhere I go and it has the minor equivalent of what you would find on my desk at home. All of this drives my wife absolutely nuts, but here is how I see it; if you don’t have a mess of things around you at all times, how are you going to get everything done before you die? That’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? Doing everything you can before Richard Dawson (may he rest in peace) tells you that your time is up?